This website will be the first of many stories about what life is like raising a boy when you are predisposed to being a redhead mom. So sit back, relax and read on…

What is it about an average day in the life of motherhood that can test moms to the brink of wine?

Friday began like every weekday with children. There was the usual “Get up Brian, get up Brian. Get up Brian!” monologue montage which flows naturally from my lips, sounding oddly like my mother.

(Hear me screaming, “NOOOO!” in your mind).

My son was practicing his typical “I can’t find my shoes!” and “I’m tired!” responses that I have come to ignore lovingly.

Yes, today was a typical day in the life of a mom with a son.

First thing this morning, the cat decided to upchuck on my son, Brian’s backpack. Now why, with all the possible choices did she determine his backpack needed an added furball stuck to one side? This sudden design addition made us slightly late for school.

OK, very late for school.

Once we arrive at school, I am jogging to the office help Brian obtain a late excuse note and receive several of those “You know your child is late!” zombie eye stares from the office staff, I drop my brand new cell phone square in a puddle of muddy water. As I am picking the wet metal thing up, my ex-husband calls with a request for help, which usually leads to more work for me and nap time for him.

While still wiping dirt off of the phone and trying to get Brian to open the door to the office, I get a second call, this time it’s my mother. She’s excited to let me know that she would like me and my son to travel IN A CAR WITH HER to Washington State for my upcoming birthday.

One should note this will involve a 16-hour road trip spread over two days with my mom and a 10-year-old-I-must-move-around boy crammed in my mother’s car built for two people under 5’6″. And–she always insists upon driving everywhere we go together. We have this kind of mother-daughter relationship where she treats me like I am 14-years-old and I let her.

I say, “OK.” Because, I have no life. It’s travel, right?

As the day progresses, my client calls disintegrate into a series of loan problems that I do not have solutions. Doesn’t anyone take Good Friday off anymore? Without eating lunch, I race to pick up Brian from school promptly at 2:30 pm.

He jumps breathlessly into the passenger side of the car:

“I’m hungry!”

Like this announcement could make me produce a hamburger right there on the spot.

“How was your day?”

“OK. I’m hungry!”

“I heard you the first time Brian, but I have to go to the grocery store before we can go home.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs.

“But Moooooooooooom. I’ve had a really long day!”

Yeah, well, it’s about to become longer.

At the grocery store that likes to put everything related to Type II Diabetes within a hand’s reach of a child, Brian has decided not to cooperate and be his good-child self for the excruciating 10 minutes we are there.

Choruses of whining insue:

Can we go now?

Are we done yet?

Mom?

Mom?

Are you done yet?

Can I have this?

Will you buy me that?

Brian follows me around the store like a dark shadow befalling a haunted house. I try those deep breathing exercises they tell you on Oprah that is supposed to work like Prozac so you won’t kill your kids in the middle of the sugared-cereal grocery isle. To my amazement, we finally make it to the checkout without an emotional breakdown.

Until I cannot find my wallet.

Yep. No wallet.

I am now one of those women in the grocery line.

Brian gives me the “You’ve GOT to be kidding!” look only a 10-year-old boy can give to their mom in line at the grocery store in front of the world. The store clerk informs me that they will save my groceries in the cart at the back of the store for 30 minutes so I can attempt to go find my wallet.

She adds that when I return to the store, all of my groceries will have to be re-rung.

I was proud I didn’t let out one of those blood-curdling primeval screams and pull out my hairspray like some pepper spray shooter and spray everyone in the face within 5 feet of me.

Brian and I calmly leave. He informs me that he is still hungry. Like somehow I might have forgotten that fact and we were simply going home to go straight to bed. Like that would ever happen.

I find my wallet at home in my bathroom. I decide we should have soup for dinner as I eye a bottle of unopened wine on the kitchen counter.

I did not go back to the store. Shocked?

Just before bed, my mom calls again to say she has booked our rooms to which I open that damn bottle of wine.